University of Minnesota Athletics
GOPHERS LOOK TO EXTEND WINNING STREAK AT LAKE PLACID INVITATIONAL
1/11/1999 12:00:00 AM | Athletics
MINNESOTA RECENTLY-The fourth-ranked Gophers extended their unbeaten streak to 12 games with a 10-0 win over St. Cloud State at Mariucci Arena Saturday. Minnesota jumped out to a 7-0 barely 11 minutes into the game, scoring on seven of its first 11 shots.
Nadine Muzerall (Mississauga, Ontario/Kimball Union Academy) opened the scoring with the first of her three goals at the game's 4:05 mark and Amber Hegland (Farmington, Minn./Farmington) scored the first of her two goals just 16 seconds later. Kris Scholz (Hugo, Minn./Stillwater Area) and Courtney Kennedy (Woburn, Mass./Buckingham, Browne & Nichols) added the next two goals to give the Gophers a school-record four goals in 2:39.
The scoring spree took a brief respite before Muzerall scored at 9:22, setting a record for the five fastest goals in school history at 5:17. Megan Milbert (South St. Paul, Minn./South St. Paul) scored at 9:39 and Jenny Schmidgall (Edina, Minn./Edina) scored on the power play at 11:05 to make it seven goals in seven minutes for Minnesota.
The Gophers did not register another goal for nearly 25 minutes before Muzerall finished her hat trick with a power-play goal at 16:03 of the second period. Tracy Engstrom (Willmar, Minn./Willmar) scored little more than two minutes later and Hegland scored her second of the game with 19 seconds remaining in the period.
Minnesota took just 27 shots in the game while limiting the Huskies to just four. Crystal Nicholas (Tulsa, Okla./Union) recorded her fourth shutout of the season for the Gophers.
ST. LAWRENCE RECENTLY-The Saints began a stretch of six games in eight days with a 6-1 loss at New Hampshire Sunday. Trisha Powers scored St. Lawrence's lone goal as the Wildcats held a 46-23 advantage in shots on goal. Emily Stein stopped 41 shots for St. Lawrence.
The Saints round out a two-game road trip by taking on Colby Monday evening before returning home for a Wendesday night game with Cornell. St. Lawrence will then face Minnesota, Concorida and Minnesota State, Mankato in the Lake Placid Invitational.
Ron Waske is in his third season behind the Saints bench. A 1969 graduate of St. Lawrence, he is 18-38-2 in his tenure at SLU.
CONCORDIA RECENTLY-The Stingers ran their records to 15-2-1 with a 4-1 win and a 1-1 tie at home with Dartmouth over the weekend.
In their first action in over a month and, despite being outshot 26-20 Saturday, Concordia manged to defeat the Big Green by jumping out to a 3-0 lead.
Sunday, the Stingers needed to overcome an early 1- 0 deficit to garner a tie, extending their unbeaten streak to four games.
Concordia coach Les Lawton is in his 16th season as the Stingers head coach. Last year, he led his squad to the first-ever CIAU title and has compiled a 398-65-17 record at his alma mater.
TORONTO RECENTLY-The Varsity Blues, idle since Dec. 1, end a 41-day layoff Tuesday with the first of five games in six days this week.
Toronto will be at Ontario Universities Athletic Association foe Guelph, Tuesday, and will return home to face league foe York, Thursday, before beginning play in Lake Placid Friday.
Varsity Blue head coach Karen Hughes, a 1990 graduate of Toronto, is in her sixth season. She began the 1998-99 campaign with a 111-19-7 record.
SCORING SPREE-During their seven-minute scoring spree Saturday, the Gophers scored on seven of nine shots, scoring on three straight shots two separate times.
The first three goals came on Minnesota's third, fourth and fifth shots of the game in a span of 1:18. The last three goals, scored in a span of 1:43, came on the Gophers ninth, 10th and 11th shots.
Even though they scored seven goals in seven minutes, Minnesota had a 2:38 lull between goals four and five as they killed a penalty and scored just three seconds after the penalty, to Winny Brodt (Roseville, Minn./Roseville Area) at 7:19 for hooking, ended.
STREAKING-Three Gophers have current point-scoring streaks at nine games or more.
Jenny Schmidgall extended her point and goal streaks to 11 games Saturday. Held scoreless in her collegiate debut, a 3-1 loss to Harvard (Nov. 5), she has recorded goals in each of her last 11 games and assists in her last five games.
Nine of those 11 games have been multiple-point games, including Saturday when Schmidgall recorded her third five-point game of the season.
Kris Scholz also extended her point streak to 11 games with her second four-point performance of the season. One of just three Gophers to play in all 14 games this season, she has scored points in 13 of those 14 games and has eight goals and 20 points during her current streak.
Nadine Muzerall notched her second hat trick of the season, and fifth of her career, to extend her point streak to nine games. It was also her eighth multiple- point effort in 12 games this season and gave her 11 goals and 22 points in her last nine games.
ANOTHER DONUT-In just six starts this season, first- year goalie Crystal Nicholas has accumulated four shutouts. She entered the week second in the nation in shutouts and is tops in goals against average and winning percentage.
STREAKING-The Gophers have put together a school-record 11-game winning streak and and a 12-game unbeaten streak. Since a 3-1 loss to Harvard, Nov. 5, the Gophers have scored 84 goals in 12 games, including four 10-goal games. At the same time, they have allowed just 11 goals while outshooting opponents 496-191, an average of 41.3-15.9.
NATIONAL STATISTICS-Minnesota was ranked highly in a number of team statistical categories last week, as were several Gopher players.
Total points-t2. Jenny Schmidgall, 33; t10. Nadine Muzerall, 23; 15. Kris Scholz, 21. Points per game-1. Schmidgall, 3.00; 5. Muzerall, 2.09; 14. Scholz, 1.62. Totals goals-2. Schmidgall, 17; t14. Muzerall, 10; t18. Scholz, 8. Goals per game-2. Schmidgall, 1.55; t10. Muzerall, 0.91. Total assists-t5. Schmidgall, 16; t10. Muzerall, Scholz, Shannon Kennedy, 13. Assists per game-3. Schmidgall, 1.45; 7. Muzerall, 1.18; 9. S. Kennedy, 1.08; t10. Scholz, 1.00. Power-play goals-t3. Schmidgall 5; t6. Muzerall, 4; t12. Courtney Kennedy, 3. Short-handed goals-1. Muzerall, 2. Game-winning goals-t9. S. Kennedy, 2.
Goals against average-1. Crystal Nicholas, 0.60; 5. Erica Killewald, 1.36. Save percentage-t3. Killewald, Nicholas, .939. Winning percentage-1. Nicholas, 1.000; 3. Killewald, .813. Shutouts-t2. Nicholas, 3.
Scoring offensee-2nd, 6.69. Scoring defense-1st, 1.15. Scoring margin-1st, +5.54. Power play-2nd, 35.7%. Penalty kill-5th, 89.4%.
THE SERIES-Minnesota holds a 2-0-0 lead in its all-time series with St. Lawrence, having beaten the Saints in a pair of games at Mariucci Arena last season. The Gophers have not met either Concordia or Toronto previously.
WHEN LAST WE MET-Minnesota posted a pair of five-goal wins over St. Lawrence, Jan. 6-7, 1998, in Minneapolis. Nadine Muzerall scored a pair of goals and added an assist in the series opener, a 6-1 Gopher win. Heather Cook scored the Saints' lone goal, a power-play tally at 4:58 of the final period, to avert the shutout as Erica Killewald (Troy, Mich./Troy) and Sarah Harms combined for 22 saves.
Killewald posted a shutout the next night, stopping 20 shots, as Minnesota completed the sweep with a 5-0 win. After a slow start, the Gophers got goals from Angela Borek (Burnsville, Minn.) and Ambria Thomas (Fairbanks, Alaska/West Valley) in the final nine seconds of the opening period, the latter goal with just 0.4 left on the clock. Muzerall then clinched the game with a pair of third-period goals.
THE COACH-Now in her second season behind the Minnesota bench and ninth season as a college head coach, Laura Halldorson has established herself as one of the nation's premier coaches in women's hockey, sporting an 92-83-13 overall record and a 33-8-4 mark at Minnesota.
She began her head coaching career at Colby College, where she led the White Mules, one of only two non-Division I schools at the time in the 12-team Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference, to a 12-9-1 overall record in 1995-96, earning ECAC Co-Coach of the Year honors as well as being named the New England Hockey Writers' Coach of the Year. While at Colby, she also recruited and coached ECAC Player of the Year Meaghan Sittler.
At the national level, she was the assistant coach for the gold medal-winning team at the 1998 U.S. Olympic Festival and also served as an assistant for the U.S. Women's Select team that competed in the Three Nations Cup in Finland.
A native of Plymouth, Minn., and a 1981 graduate of Wayzata High School, Halldorson played four years at Princeton, where she was a co-captain and all- conference performer while leading the Tigers to three Ivy League titles. She graduated from Princeton in 1985 with a degree in psychology.
A member of the 1987 U.S. National Women's Team and three national club championship teams with the Minnesota Checkers, Halldorson returned to her alma mater in 1987 to begin her collegiate coaching career as an assistant.
GONE POLLING-Minnesota maintained its position in both the American Hockey Magazine/USA Today and U.S. College Hockey Online polls. Harvard remained in the top spot in both polls.
USA Today/American Hockey Magazine Poll (Jan. 5, 1999) Team Record Pts LW 1.Harvard 14-1-0 25 1 2.New Hampshire 9-1-3 20 2 3.Brown 7-1-3 15 3 4.Minnesota 11-1-1 10 4 5.Northeastern 8-3-2 5 NR Others receiving votes: None.
U.S. College Hockey Online Poll (Dec. 14, 1998) Team Record Pts LW 1.Harvard 14-1-0 100 1 2.New Hampshire 9-1-3 89 2 3.Minnesota 6-1-1 81 3 4.Brown 7-1-3 68 4 5.Northeastern 7-3-2 58 6 6.Providence 6-3-2 53 5 7.Princeton 8-4-1 39 7 8.Dartmouth 6-5-3 28 8 Others receiving votes: Cornell 7. UP NEXT-The Gophers return home for a pair of games next weekend as they host Wilfrid Laurier of Waterloo, Ontario. Two-game series gets underway at 7 p.m. Friday and concludes with another 7 p.m. contest Saturday.
THE POWER PLAY-As a team, Minnesota is 22-for-58 (37.9%) on the power play after going 2-for-2 versus St. Cloud State. The Gophers' 58 power plays have resulted in 82:59 of power-play time and they average a goal every 3:46 while on the power play.
THE PENALTY KILL-As a team, Minnesota is 45-for-50 (90.0%) killing penalties with their opponents having spent 88:49 on the power play, averaging a goal every 17:46.
